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Art is always the index of social vitality, the moving finger that records the destiny of a civilization. A wise statesman should keep an anxious eye on this graph, for it is more significant than a decline in exports or a fall in the value of a nation's currency.

Herbert Read

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Herbert Read
Age: 74 †
Born: 1893
Born: November 4
Died: 1968
Died: June 12
Anarchist
Art Historian
Literary Critic
Philosopher
Poet
Writer
Muscoates
North Yorkshire
Sir Herbert Edward Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Read
Herbert Edward Read
Eye
Destiny
Statesmen
Moving
Civilization
Vitality
Fall
Value
Finger
Social
Nation
Currency
Graph
Keep
Records
Decline
Graphs
Art
Wise
Anxious
Exports
Always
Nations
Significant
Index
Values
Fingers
Statesman

More quotes by Herbert Read

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I know of no better name than Anarchism.
Herbert Read
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The modern work of art, as I have said, is a symbol.
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Intellect begins with the observation of nature, proceeds to memorize and classify the facts thus observed, and by logical deduction builds up that edifice of knowledge properly called scienceĀ… But admittedly we also know by feeling, and we can combine the two faculties, and present knowledge in the guise of art.
Herbert Read
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In general, modern art... has been inspired by a natural desire to chart the uncharted.
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To realize that new world we must prefer the values of freedom and equality above all other values - above personal wealth, technical power and nationalism.
Herbert Read
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It was Nietzsche who first made us conscious of the significance of the individual as a term in the evolutionary process-in that part of the evolutionary process which has still to take place.
Herbert Read
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The assumption is that the right kind of society is an organic being not merely analogous to an organic being, but actually a living structure with appetites and digestions, instincts and passions, intelligence and reason.
Herbert Read
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My own early experiences in war led me to suspect the value of discipline, even in that sphere where it is so often regarded as the first essential for success.
Herbert Read
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The fundamental purpose of the artist is the same as that of a scientist: to state a fact.
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In order to create it is necessary to destroy and the agent of destruction in society is the poet. I believe that the poet is necessarily an anarchist, and that he must oppose all organized conceptions of the State, not only those which we inherit from the past, but equally those which are imposed on people in the name of the future.
Herbert Read
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Love works miracles in stillness.
Herbert Read
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But the further step, by means of which a civilization is given its quality or culture, is only attained by a process of cellular division, in the course of which the individual is differentiated, made distinct from and independent of the parent group.
Herbert Read
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Perhaps it is this theory of all work and no play that has made the Marxist such a very dull boy.
Herbert Read
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Man is everywhere still in chains.
Herbert Read
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But all categories of art, idealistic or realistic, surrealistic or constructivist (a new form of idealism) must satisfy a simple test (or they are in no sense works of art): they must persist as objects of contemplation.
Herbert Read
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Freud has shown one thing very clearly: that we only forget our infancy by burying it in the unconscious and that the problems of this difficult period find their solution under a disguised form in adult life.
Herbert Read
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Progress is measured by richness and intensity of experience - by a wider and deeper apprehension of the significance and scope of human existence.
Herbert Read
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If we persist in our restless desire to know everything about the universe and ourselves, then we must not be afraid of what the artist brings back from his voyage of discovery.
Herbert Read
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The peculiarity of sculpture is that it creates a three-dimensional object in space. Painting may strive to give on a two-dimensional plane, the illusion of space, but it is space itself as a perceived quantity that becomes the peculiar concern of the sculptor. We may say that for the painter space is a luxury for the sculptor it is a necessity.
Herbert Read
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It is already clear, after twenty years of socialism in Russia, that if you do not provide your society with a new religion, it will gradually revert to the old one.
Herbert Read